Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
One of the big stories in F1 during the latter half of the 2019 season concerned exactly what Scuderia Ferrari was doing to get so much power out of its engine. Its cars were undoubtedly the fastest in a straight line for much of the year, although a "technical clarification" issued in November by the FIA—the sport's governing body—coincided with a drop off in the Italian team's speed.
Things got a little more interesting in February of this year, when the FIA announced that it had reached an agreement with Ferrari following an investigation into the matter. The announcement was more than a little cryptic, and part of the agreement with the team was a condition that while Ferrari wouldn't do it again, exactly what "it" was will remain a secret. The 2020 F1 season is on hold thanks to the coronavirus, but if the cars do get back on track this year, they'll do so with a new sensor that's designed to prevent a possible repeat of last year's shenanigans.
There were two main theories about what the Scuderia was up to. The less imaginative one involves the engine's intercooler, which reduces the temperature of the air after it has been compressed by the turbocharger. [...]
The other theory is far more ingenious. Perhaps Ferrari was somehow manipulating or interfering with the fuel flow sensor, an ultrasonic device that samples fuel flow at 2,200Hz. This theory was given some credence when in November, rival team Red Bull Racing asked the FIA, hypothetically, whether it would be allowed to use the fuel pump to vary the fuel rate, such that it was below the 100kg/hr limit during each sampling event but above it during the gaps in between. In F1, if you suspect another team is cheating, you often ask the FIA whether it would let you do whatever it is you think that other team is doing, hoping for a response in the form of a technical clarification that says "no, doing X is not allowed," and in this case, the FIA did exactly that.
A couple bits of evidence pointed to this indeed being Ferrari's advantage. For one, its cars definitely appeared to lose some straight line performance from this point in the season on. And for another, it would explain how one of its cars was found to be carrying too much fuel at the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Not a lot—just 4.88kg—but enough to explain the roughly 5-percent power advantage that the Ferrari engine appeared to generate. (For an explanation on why you'd want to run with more fuel than you declare when that means a weight penalty, I recommend Mark Hughes' explanation over at MotorSport.)
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:07PM (13 children)
I knew someone who worked for a Nascar team for a while. Basically, the rule for anyone on the engineering and mechanical side of the team was "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:33PM (9 children)
It's getting boring. We need truly unlimited sports. Let them all dope and cheat all they want. Even have snipers picking them off. Let's find out who the best cheaters are. Give Sebulba a fighting chance.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:58PM (7 children)
The problem with unlimited motor racing is twofold: safety and budget.
With unlimited power (combined unlimited tire tech, active aerodynamics, etc.), safety becomes impossible - unless we're interested in a remote/AI driven series - with the spectators located far back from the track.
F1 already has eyewatering budgets with the prize usually going to the best funded teams, but without their rules it would get worse. Even in a full remote/AI driven race series, with unlimited power the budgets would usually decide the winner.
So, most levels of racing become a matter of optimizing to the rules, and an implicit part of the rules is how they are enforced. If the rules only require a fuel sensor that samples at 2200Hz, oscillating your fuel flow with a minimum flow rate coinciding with the sensor sample points is one way to do that... until the rules get "clarified."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday March 24 2020, @05:24PM
Remember IROC?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday March 24 2020, @05:35PM
oscillating your fuel flow with a minimum flow rate coinciding with the sensor sample points is one way to do that
Yeah, but unlike with electrons, even at 2200Hz you gotta deal with that whole mass/inertia thing when moving fuel.
To make it real, they should just eliminate all the electronics on the car, except the cameras, those shots are the best.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @07:14PM (3 children)
i think it would be cooler if you just had size, weight, budget limits, accountability (if your shit breaks or blows up and hurts someone else, you have to pay for it) and then let them design wtf they want. this nanny shit is one reason why i don't watch this crap. why do i want to watch a bunch of cars designed by another party & committee. it's ridiculous. it sounds like a bunch of know-it-all hacks just needed jobs. just like government agencies.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 25 2020, @12:52AM (2 children)
Budget limits are impossible to enforce. Grassroots motorsports ran some kind of competition for cheap racecars, like sub $2000 or something total investment. Problem #1 is that decent race tires cost $500 per set. Problem #2 is the transport of the race car to the venue is a costly proposition no matter what and a trailer can easily cost over $2000. Problem #3 is that Bubba would "find" some frame of a car somewhere and then invest 600 hours with his welding rig and other stuff he "found at a junkyard for free" to build the under $2000 masterpiece.
Fuel limits are an interesting concept, I think Grouppe C tried them, but they didn't lead to the most exciting competition - leaders would often miscalculate and run out of fuel late in the race.
NASCAR has their intake restrictor plates, effectively limiting engine oxygen intake rate - that's something that seems to work well enough.
Engine displacement rules have always been problematic, particularly when forced induction is allowed.
Spec Miata is a pretty affordable and competitive racing class, if you're into that sort of thing.
Me, personally, I never took it seriously enough to think it's worth risking my life with other idiots on the track at the same time as me, so when I raced, I raced in Solo series - if I'm going to kill myself in a speeding metal coffin, I want it to be between me, my car, the road, and maybe some errant wildlife that wanders onto the track, not some other idiot in another metal coffin who misjudged something.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Wednesday March 25 2020, @12:03PM (1 child)
Simple to enforce budget limits. Any competitor can buy any of the top 3 (5, maybe) for the budget price.
You can't buy into the series, but you can keep anyone else running from getting too crazy by simply buying their car at the budget price. Why spend 50,000 to build a car when one of the lower finishers can buy it for 40,000?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 25 2020, @02:26PM
That would be an interesting game to play, but I imagine you'd have teams building a good car for $15K investment and having other teams spending the $40K just to get their hands on it screwing up the top team in the process. Even silly solo racers invest far more than $40K in their quests for FTD. Then, there's the incalculable labor and skill that goes on top of the $15K car, which can easily top $25K in value for someone who values winning.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by dltaylor on Tuesday March 24 2020, @11:30PM
Run what you can afford WAS the initial rule set.
Then came the Porsche 917/30. Pushing for ground effects, the drag was horrendous, but the thing had so much power (900 --1000 BHP, in 1973, for a full race distance, not just qualifying) that it didn't matter. The McLarens and Lolas didn't have much chance, even with ~500 Cubic Inch Chevrolet engines. Brutally beautiful, too, like a tiger.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=palemoon&q=porsche+917/30&ia=images&iax=images [duckduckgo.com]
I watched a race at the Nürburgring in 1973. Back then, the Nordschleife extended down toward the original full-length track. There was a roughly 45 degree bend, leading to a 225 to bring the track back parallel to the start/finish straight. Kids think that their "newfangled" drifting is cool (personally, I always find something else to do for those races), but the 917/30 could hold a slightly tail-out attitude for the full 225 at about 150 MPH.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Circuit_N%C3%BCrburgring-1967-Nordschleife.svg/1108px-Circuit_N%C3%BCrburgring-1967-Nordschleife.svg.png [wikimedia.org]
No other team had Porsche's budget, and that, effectively. killed the series.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 24 2020, @05:33PM
They should go into politics.
Select any political party to begin.
Then click self destruct.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:39PM
And some of the old NASCAR cheating stories have become legends (many web pages available if anyone is interested). The team members outnumber the officials, so it's not a very fair game. In the 1980s, I watched a car go through tech scales about 30 pounds underweight (if caught, a serious penalty). Since it wasn't one of the top finishers that day, no one else was the wiser.
However, I understand that the 2021 car will be delivered nearly complete, very little room for teams to make changes.
(Score: 1) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday March 24 2020, @04:42PM
No kidding.
Check up on all of the controversies around Smokey Yunick's[1] 'outside the box' engineering. ;-)
Gaming the system has existed in racing since before chariot racing. Human nature is at the root of these issues, when all is said and done.
[1]circa 1950's to 1970; he was both famous and infamous at the same time, kind of similar to a certain physicist's cat.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @05:32PM
NASCAR is nothing but trailer trash racing. Left left left left.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday March 24 2020, @05:46PM (3 children)
I remember reading several years ago that when they limited the size of the gas tank one driver realized they didn't limit the size of the fuel line. So they made it 1" diameter and 11 feet long, giving them another 5 gallons.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday March 24 2020, @06:04PM (1 child)
You've got to admire people who think outside the box like this example - but personally I would prefer that racing was conducted in a fair way, unless everybody is made aware that there are no rules.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 24 2020, @09:29PM
Among the most exciting motor racing I have ever seen was a class that raced on dirt (asphalt is for parking, apparently) which had a budget limit of $4,000 for the season.
It was specifically set up so that ordinary guys could have fun competing, and everyone had a chance of winning.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Wednesday March 25 2020, @01:10PM
%20 [soylentnews.org]" rel="url2html-19108">https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+1+inch+diameter+and+11+feet+length>
0.4488 gallons???
Must've been NASCAR with these units.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @07:59PM (4 children)
Stop doing it or I'm going away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 24 2020, @08:31PM
goodbye...
(Score: 1) by Kitsune008 on Tuesday March 24 2020, @09:15PM
Of course it's a clickbait title...by design.
The hope is people will click on the linked article and *gasp* read it!
Then an intelligent discussion of said clickbait can ensue.
Admittedly, it rarely works that way.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday March 24 2020, @10:04PM
As opposed to all the articles the author is hoping nobody reads ever?
The title seems to reasonably describe the contents of TFA, unlike actual clickbait.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 25 2020, @04:11PM
Oh no, please don't leave us, AC... /s
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 25 2020, @12:28AM (1 child)
some 30-40 years ago they had a series where, I dunno, NASCAR built the cars as identical as they could. They then put drivers into those cars.
The result was driving skill, not how well your team could interpret the rule book. I've never been a fan of racing (outside of the YouTube videos of the crashes), but I found these races to be fascinating.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday March 25 2020, @04:08PM
Because then all these luxury car companies wouldn't have any motivation to participate? I assume the whole reason they do is to pimp their engineering teams and demonstrate how good of a car they can build.
Having everybody drive the same car may not outright kill the sport, but it would be a huge shakeup of how it works and what it's about.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"